Japan: Cleanup Work Begins at Fukushima
Radioactive debris will be collected and stored by a robotic arm, but retrieving hundreds of tons of molten nuclear fuel will take decades of work, and the results are impossible to predict...
The countdown has begun for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), operator of the disastrous Fukushima nuclear power plant, which will have to begin work this month to recover radioactive and extremely toxic debris containing molten nuclear fuel in one of the three reactors hit by the March 2011 tsunami.
According to the Japanese press, following the operations to dump wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, “the removal of radioactive debris is considered one of the most responsible, delicate, and dangerous tasks in dismantling the three reactors and the entire nuclear power plant.”
According to a statement released by TEPCO, a remote-controlled mechanical arm has been built that will initially “attempt to extract just a few grams of radioactive debris from the Fukushima No. 2 reactor.” The operation is so complex that TEPCO has not ventured to make any predictions about the timing of the process, nor to present to the Japanese and world public “a roadmap for removing approximately 880 tons of debris from all three units of the nuclear power plant.”
The operation involves inserting a remote-controlled retractable tube equipped with a robotic arm into the reactor’s containment capsule to attempt to extract samples. That test alone “will take about two weeks.” The Tokyo government estimates that the work to dismantle the nuclear power plant could last another 20-25 years.
